Thousands of GCSE students were left baffled yesterday afternoon over a “stupid” question about Charles Darwin on the AQA Biology exam.
Pupils were reportedly asked: “Explain why Darwin was drawn as a monkey”.
The question about the famous biologist led to outrage among some students who felt it was unfair that they had not been asked about topics they have spent months revising.
“Can someone please sort out AQA GCSE biology examiners - all the hours of revision and they ask why Darwin was drawn as a monkey!” one exasperated pupil wrote on Twitter.
But other pupils saw the funnier side of the question:
An AQA spokesperson told HuffPost UK: “It’s completely normal for students to tweet about their exams.
“We only ever ask questions about things that are covered in the syllabus - but we can’t ask questions about everything on the syllabus, so students will always end up revising topics that don’t come up.”
The controversy comes a year after AQA caused an uproar in a GCSE biology exam by asking students “What is meant by the term independent business?”
Pupils at the time complained that the question had nothing to do with science.